1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and a device for controlling automatically the exposure in a camera according to a program.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A large number of cameras in which the exposure is controlled automatically according to a program have been used in recent years. Each camera of this kind has an exposure program (mode) incorporated therein beforehand, and a lens stop value and a shutter speed according to the exposure program are adjusted and set automatically in response to the luminance of an object measured by the camera.
In conventional automatic exposure control cameras, the control is performed generally by such a method as described above. Some of these cameras have a plurality of exposure control programs which are used selectively. An invention disclosed in the specification of Japanese Patent Publication No. 125927/1982, for instance, has proposed to photograph on the basis of different exposure programs according to whether an automatic focusing device (AF) is operated or not in a camera. This proposal aims to avoid the employment of a large stop aperture in photographing by AF, and thereby to deepen a field more than a prescribed value so as to reduce the case of an object being out of focus when AF is applied.
Such a proposal for combining AF with automatic exposure control to make use of the depth of field so as to reduce the probability of an object "being out of focus" is still insufficient for the purpose, and thus pictures meeting the demand of photographers to the full have not always been obtained.